Problems with modern nuclear reactors

For this blog, I will be stating my opinion on how nuclear power has room for improvement. There are three major drawbacks of nuclear power from fission reactors. Fission reactors are the only non-experimental power producing nuclear reactors that exist today. The first drawback is safety. Some people are worried about nuclear reactors exploding. This is not a realistic concern due to the fact that the fuel is not the same grade, or concentration of useable uranium, as that which is used in nuclear bombs. There are also many failsafes that have been developed or implemented since events like 3 mile island or Chernobyl. People are also concerned about nuclear reactors emitting radiation, even though you get more radiation exposure from living in a brick or stone house than you do from living next door to a nuclear power plant.

The second drawback is the production of nuclear waste. Most nuclear waste is in the form of spent fuel rods. These contain fission products, most of which are radioactive, and therefore are poisonous and hazardous to the environment. Nuclear waste is a mix of radioactive isotopes with varying half-lives. The half-life of something is the amount of time it takes for half of the atoms to decay into something else. Some constituents of the nuclear waste have a relatively short half live. This means that they are very radioactive, but become less radioactive faster. Other parts of the waste have very long half-lives these are a problem because, despite being less radioactive, will stay radioactive for millions of years.

The last major drawback is that the fuel for fission reactors is expensive to process and rare. Natural uranium is only 0.7% U²³⁵ (Uranium that can be used as fuel), meaning that it has to be enriched to be used for fuel in nuclear reactors. This enrichment process takes some of the U²³⁵ from natural uranium and concentrates it. The uranium with a lower concentration of U²³⁵ (under .3%) is called “depleted uranium” and is used for other things. The uranium with a higher concentration of U²³⁵ (usually from 3% to 5%) is called enriched uranium and can be used in nuclear reactors. This enrichment process takes large amounts of energy, time, and infrastructure. This along with all of the safety equipment needed makes nuclear power very expensive in comparison to what it could be with further development. In my next blogs, I will be writing about some ideas for development that could minimize or negate the problems above.